Indonesian
Health Ministry's
Director General
of Disease Control and
Environmental Health,
Tjandra Yoga Aditama,
recently warned that
climate change
is increasing people's
vulnerability to illness
across the nation.
These include skin cancer
and respiratory
complications.

Furthermore, continued
land degradation and
its associated biodiversity
loss, leading to variations
in previously steady
ecosystem patterns,
would speed the spread
of disease and
the dwindling
of water resources.
Rising temperatures
along extremes of both
rainy and dry seasons
also creates conditions
more conducive
for waterborne, airborne,
and animal-borne disease.

Climate-related
health hazards are also
becoming increasingly
apparent elsewhere
in the world,
as noted by Professor
Tony McMichael
of the National Center
for Epidemiology
and Population Health
at Australian
National University.
Speaking with
Supreme Master Television,
Professor McMichael
explained some of the
fundamental necessities
that are imperilled
by climate change.

Professor Tony McMichael, PhD, National Center for
Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH), Australian National
University (ANU) (M):
The basic essentials
for health I think, are:
a secure food supply,
a good fresh water supply,
normal constraints,
limitations on the spread
of infectious agents,
reasonable protections
against physical hazards,
sort of protection
that's provided
by intact coastal zones,
mangrove swamps,
forests, and so on,
and a reasonable
stable climate system.

Those things are
absolutely crucial
in the long term for
human wellbeing, health
and, of course, survival.
And those are the things
that have been put at risk
by climate change and
by these other enormous
environmental changes
that we are seeing
in these modern times.

VOICE:
Eco-conscious protective
measures are thus
vital to our future.
Professor Tony McMichael, PhD (M):
This is a chance for us
to think seriously about
how we can live
sustainably in ways
that are convivial
and congenial,
not competitive, don't
involve unpleasantness
and conflict,
don't involve inequities
whereby some people
miss out on scarce
resources because
they're being overused
and poorly managed.

VOICE:
Professor McMichael
and Indonesia's
Health Ministry,
we appreciate
your thoughtful efforts
to raise awareness of
such worrisome yet
important information.
Let us seek to adopt
the most eco-caring
measures to benefit
the environment and
all beings with whom
we share the Earth.

Supreme Master Ching Hai
has frequently
highlighted the urgent
necessity for a global
shift to more wholesome,
eco-friendly lifestyles,
as during a July 2008
videoconference
with Supreme Master
Television staff
in California, USA.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: According to
the scientists,
there could be more than
just one disaster.
Rising sea level is not
the only worrying event,
disease will also rise.
They already do so
in some parts of the world.
If it has to happen,
it happens.
But please do not
concentrate on these
negative phenomena.
Rather, we spend energy
in constructive actions
and positive thinking
and we have to envision
a more beautiful world.

Unless people change
to a more benevolent
lifestyle that is
respecting all lives,
then we will beget life
and our lives be spared.
The more vegetarian
people join the circle,
the more chance we have
to save the planet.